* GregorPuppinck and Claire De La Hougue, ‘The right to assisted suicide in the case law of the European Court of Human Rights’.Finally, please find in the menu on the right the link to a European-wide prize question, which is set up by the network of European Young Academies of Sciences - an exciting quest to think creatively about the future of Europe. Click on the image for more information - everyone is welcome to participate! I have the honor of serving in the jury.

Tuesday, 7 October 2014

On 30 and 31 October the universities of Antwerp and Leuven are co-organising a seminar entitled 'Shifting the Convention System: Counter-dynamics at the National Level' in Antwerp. According to the organisers, the seminar "aims to map out to what extent criticism on the European Court of Human Rights and its case law is being translated into counter-dynamics at the political or judicial level. The focus is not solely put on countries that are known to have highly critical voices. Rather, the seminar will explore whether the translation of criticism into (the demand for) concrete changes in the dynamics between national fundamental rights protection and the Convention system is a pan-European reality or merely limited to a few countries. To enable comparison, the country reports presented at the seminar are based on a questionnaire drafted by the organisers." A very interesting endeavour as we mostly only hear about criticism in a few countries or from a few voices. This makes this mapping exercise all the more useful, to avoid over- or under-estimation the problem. This is the programme of the seminar:

Thursday, 2 October 2014

Very happy to inform you that as of this week I have been appointed full professor of human rights and director of the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (SIM)! Last week was the formal hand-over ceremony at the occasion of the annual SIM Peter Baehr Lecture (delivered this year by Sir Nigel Rodley), where my esteemed predecessor, professor Jenny Goldschmidt, handed over the baton to me. I feel deeply honoured by having been appointed to this new position and am looking forward to cooperating with the human rights research community across the globe to continue SIM's mission of human rights research and education. In addition, I will of course endeavor to keep up with the challenge of hosting the ECHR Blog. ECHR-related news will be on here again next week (and forgive me for this exceptional detour to something not ECHR-related, dear readers!).